


Deck the Halls

by Anjupear



Category: Artemis Fowl - Eoin Colfer
Genre: Character Study, Christmas, Fluff and Angst, Gen, a bunch of oneshots in a trench coat, and myles thinks he's james bond, artemis and holly have a lil heart to heart it's angsty, artemis fowl big bang 2021, beckett has adhd, deal with it ok, in february
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-15 14:15:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29437386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anjupear/pseuds/Anjupear
Summary: Christmas is the time of year when family and friends gather together and show their love for one another. It is also the time of year when they drive each other crazy. Snapshots of Christmas Eve in the Fowl household, because shameless absurd Christmas fluff. Butler yells at interior decorators. Myles breaks into Artemis’s office. Holly and Artemis have a surprisingly civil conversation.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 27
Collections: Artemis Fowl Big Bang 2021





	1. Christmas Past (Preparation)

Cover art by talesoftales on Tumblr

The career of a manservant was a wild and varied one. Butler’s job had, in the past, consisted of back-alley gunfights in rural Japan, a touch of high-profile espionage in New York, and plenty of emergency first aid in Russia.

Yet today, priority number one was not garroting the Christmas decorators sprawled all over Fowl Manor’s doorstep with their own tinsel.

“So _when_ is the forklift going to be back, exactly?” Butler rubbed his forehead.

“At least Sunday,” stuttered the decorator in front of him, looking quite apologetic. The sight of the near seven foot man glowering down at him doubtless did wonders for his humility. “I can put in a call, but the operator’s already gone home for the night, and there’s no guarantee he’ll…” he trailed off as the look on Butler’s face darkened.

Great. Fantastic. So now there was a giant tree in the foyer, directly in the line of sight of Camera 2B, that couldn’t be moved until Sunday.

“Fine, fine, just go.” Butler waved the man away and he scurried off, a look of relief on his face.

The manservant turned to the festive monstrosity before him. The lights on it twinkled back far too cheerily.

It didn’t look that big. He had dealt with worse in the Academy.

With a small stretch of his arms, he strode over to the tree, fully aware of the gazes of the decorators locked on him. He pressed one palm up against the trunk, pressing slowly, testing the weight of it. The base creaked ominously.

One of the smarter decorators perked up at this and managed to blurt out a “Sir, I wouldn’t recommend-” before Butler threw his full weight against the trunk, head bent low like a football player going in for a tackle. The metal base let out an ear-piercing screech as the entire ensemble shifted a bare 2 inches to the right. Butler looked up and saw Camera 2B, newly uncovered. The angle wouldn’t be perfect, he mused, but it was good enough for the holidays.

“I expect that voids the warranty or something?” he said to the decorator, now staring open-mouthed at him. The man blinked, still too stunned to speak, so Butler clapped him on the shoulder and walked off.

“If there’s any problem, let me know,” the manservant said, knowing full well that there wouldn’t be. That was just fine by him - today would be busy enough as is.

* * *

“98… 99… and there.”

Juliet wiped a drop of sweat from her brow and stepped back to admire her work. The kitchen counter was overflowing with freshly frosted Christmas cookies, the sugar paste on top still shiny and wet.

She flexed her right hand, popping the stiff joints with a sigh, then picked up a pencil and crossed out the last item on her list.

“Bake cookies - done.” She smiled and folded the scrap of paper, tucking it into her pocket. “Nothing left to do but enjoy the holidays.”

A puff of blonde hair rose slowly from behind the counter. Juliet stifled a giggle.

“Beck,” she warned, “those cookies are for the party tonight. No snacking.”

The puff froze and sank slowly back out of her view. Beckett slunk around the edge of the counter, wide blue eyes peeking around the furniture.

“I thought I was being really quiet this time,” he pouted.

“You were quiet,” she said, and tousled his hair. “Just not as short as you used to be.” He laughed and swatted at her hand before bouncing on the balls of his feet. This was one of the many signs Juliet had learned to read in her time taking care of Beckett and his brother; it meant something was on his mind.

“What’s going on?” Juliet asked.

“It’s Christmas Eve, but everyone’s busy doing something else,” the boy said with a frown. “And all the workers keep saying I’m in the way. Are you busy too?”

Juliet’s heart softened staring down at the boy in front of her, a behavior that she found more and more common when taking care of him and his twin. She had grown quite protective of Beckett over the years, and while she empathized with the plights of the overworked crew, a spark of anger flared up in the back of her head.

“I’m not doing anything,” she said gently, bending down to reach eye level with the boy. “What do you want to do?”

Beckett’s eyes lit up with excitement, and he grinned broadly. “Snowball fight!”

“Snowball fight it is.” Juliet reached over and tousled his hair again, which quickly devolved into a slap fight when Beckett tried to do the same to Juliet’s braid.

“Gotcha! - Aw…” Juliet winced and raised her elbow from the cookie she had accidentally planted it in. Frosting dripped in globs onto the counter. Beckett eyed it hungrily.

The girl glanced around, then slid the ruined cookie off the platter, snapping it in half and handing a segment to Beckett with a wink.

“Just between us,” she whispered. “Let me clean up, I’ll meet you at the door.”

Beckett gasped and devoured his prize in a single bite, then ran off towards the Manor entrance.

Juliet munched on her own portion with glee, then turned to the sink. 99 cookies was plenty, anyway.

* * *

The living room Myles stepped into ordinarily felt solemn and calm, almost austere. Now, however, it had been decked out in enough tinsel, baubles and glitter to blind an unwary entrant. Oversized stockings hung above a cozy, crackling fire, and an enormous pine had been placed in front of the floor-to-ceiling window, presumably to inspire festive joy in the woodland creatures wandering the grounds. Underneath that tree sat dozens of fat, colorful presents. He grinned.

Myles pulled out his phone and opened one of the applications, aiming the camera at the tree’s base. On screen, the gifts turned from reds and yellows to black and green, their contents laid bare underneath the scanner.

The boy perused the contents of the now-translucent boxes with leisure. Opera tickets. Books. An ant farm starter kit (Beckett would be pleased). And-

Hm.

Myles glared down at the phone screen. One small box near the corner of the pile remained stubbornly opaque. The package on screen was identical to its counterpart in real life, except for a small scratch of writing on the corner. He zoomed in and peered at the message.

_Not until tomorrow, Myles. You know the rules. -A_

He closed the application with a huff of breath and stuffed his phone back into his pocket, narrowing his eyes at the pile before him. The offending present was indistinguishable from the others in every way; it was wrapped in a tasteful deep blue paper and a gold bow was tied around its center.

Myles glanced at the doors, then knelt down beside the package and inspected it. He brushed the sides and base of the box, inspecting the material of the wrap and bow. The ‘paper’ had a subtle weave texture to it unseen in any wrapping with a pulp base; no doubt it was a tear-proof blend, perhaps even the nanotube fabric Artemis had been prototyping. A more thorough inspection revealed the bow had been tied in such a manner as to hide the wrapping seams underneath it, and a tug of the bow revealed it was stuck tight to the paper itself, most likely with a time-sensitive adhesive. Tomorrow morning, this package would be openable; for now, it was sealed tighter than a Swiss vault.

Myles placed the package delicately back in its spot and stepped away. Far from put out, the boy was brainstorming furiously. He should have expected a challenge, he thought idly. In fact, as he turned the situation over and new ideas blossomed in his head, he realized he was looking _forward_ to it.

He smiled. Let the games begin.

* * *

Butler was trawling the grounds, talking with the head gardener when he saw it.

A shadow, barely visible, flitted through the trees next to him. The groundskeeper noticed nothing, kept on insisting that yes, the ice swans were a _necessary_ part of the planned display, thank you. Butler shut him up with a raised hand.

He peered into the brush, scanning every inch of the forest. One hand went to his gun.

Then he heard a very familiar giggle and relaxed.

The groundskeeper, old and half-deaf, did not. “Is there someone there?” he asked in a hoarse whisper.

“Yes,” Butler responded back in a low murmur. Technically true, although it might have been polite to tell him the persons in question meant them no harm. 

“ATTACK!”

The shrill cry made Butler chuckle. Beckett and Juliet pounced from the bushes and commenced their assault, pelting both the groundskeeper and Butler with snowballs. The groundskeeper cried out and ran, drawing a cheer from the children.

“We did it, Jules!”

Juliet tapped the shoulder of her partner in crime and pointed at the person they had not managed to scare away. The person who was currently balling up as much snow as he could hold in his arms.

“Not quite, bud.”

Beckett’s face dropped.

“RETREAT!”

The pair ran as fast as their legs would carry them, but, though valiant, their effort was doomed from the start. With a roar, Butler half-threw, half-dumped the armful of snow he was holding onto the children, and they went down in a squealing heap. Beckett tried madly to extricate himself from the mound of snow, arms flailing wildly, while Juliet sat and laughed.

“Juliet! Help!” Beckett cried. With a final chuckle, the girl stood up and hooked her arms under his arms, pulling him free. As soon as he was released, Beckett dashed off to the woods.

“Careful doing that,” Butler said behind her. “I don’t want to mistake you for an intruder.”

Juliet dusted off a coat sleeve idly. “Please,” she said with a smirk, “I know you heard Beck laugh. I wouldn’t have snuck up on you if you were on full alert, I don’t have a death wish. You want to help us get the head decorator next?”

“Tempting, but I rather like having a job.”

“After everything you’ve done for them, I’m pretty sure the Fowls are legally obligated to pay you for the rest of your life,” Juliet said with a wry grin. “But fair enough. See you!”

Butler raised his hand up before Juliet had fully turned around, and the snowball she had hidden behind her back puffed into a cloud of dust on impact with his glove. She pouted slightly.

“How do you always know?”

“Magic.”

“No, but really.”

“It’s true, ask Holly. I have snowball detection magic now.”

She punched his shoulder playfully and ran towards the brush. “I’ll get you someday!” she yelled over her shoulder.

Butler smiled. _Not if I have anything to say about it._


	2. Christmas Present (The Party)

The sun sank slowly over the Fowl estate, painting the icy ground in shades of pink and orange. Cars rolled in one by one through the Manor’s stately stone gates; the steady crunch of rubber over gravel seemed deafening after the snow-muffled silence that had covered the grounds mere hours earlier.

And below the ground, Mulch Diggums was cackling.

Christmas was his  _ favorite _ time of year. Lots of rich idiots getting overpriced, unwanted kitsch for their families, and they couldn’t care less if a gift or two or three got lost in the mail. It was almost too easy.

Currently, the dwarf was holed up in a temporary cave he’d constructed underneath the Fowl estate snacking on a nest of beetles and thinking idly about the coming evening. Fowl’s Christmas party would be starting in an hour or so, and with any luck Butler would be too busy with the guests to notice an item or two going missing from the family vault. Part fun challenge, part joke, part heartwarming enduring Christmas tradition. He burped.

“Alright, time to get to work,” he grunted to himself. There was a lot to do before the sun set.

* * *

The house was a buzz of activity as socialites began to arrive. Every member of the family was occupied with something - it was the perfect time, Myles mused, to snoop around Artemis’s office undisturbed.

Or it  _ would _ be, if his darling mother did not insist on showing him and his brother off to  _ every arriving guest personally. _

“Oh!” Myles grimaced as his hair was ruffled by his grandmother, Eva Starinov. “You darling things, how big you’ve grown!”

Angeline laughed as the lady pinched Myles’s cheeks. “Oh, Ma, I keep telling them to stay little, but it seems like they get bigger every day. They grow up so fast!” She squeezed the boys’ shoulders.

“Myles,” Beckett whispered, “Artemis says it’s not good to grind your teeth like that.”

He had to get out of here.

Out of the corner of his eye, Myles spotted a group of children running towards the snacks. An opportunity.

He tugged Angeline’s sleeve more forcefully than was strictly necessary. She turned towards the boy.

“Yes, dear?”

“Mother, may I go play with the other children?” Myles pointed at the laughing group, now decimating the Christmas cookies. Angeline beamed and ruffled his hair once more. It took a considerable amount of willpower for Myles to avoid clenching his jaw.

“Of course, sweetheart. Go play!” she cooed, and Myles nodded gratefully. He walked toward the group, but stopped in the middle of the room. The crowd milled around him, obscuring him from his mother’s view. He checked his surroundings for prying eyes before darting to the edge of the room and slipping down an empty hallway. The music and conversation from the party echoed down the passageway, fading into the gloom. He took a deep breath and started down the hall.

“Where are you go-”

“AH!”

Myles let out what could only be described as a squeak as his twin materialized behind his shoulder. Beckett waited as Myles caught his breath.

“Where are you going?” he asked conspiratorially once Myles had steadied himself. “Are you on a secret mission?” 

“Of sorts,” the boy responded, voice still a smidge higher than normal. He cleared his throat. “Artemis is yet unawares that I have cracked the new code on his office door, and I plan to search his computer to find out what he has ordered me for Christmas.”

Beckett frowned. “Brother, you should really wait until tomorrow. That’s not how Christmas is supposed to work.”  
“It is the principal of the thing, Beckett,” Myles responded with a pat on his brother’s shoulder. “Artemis has challenged me, and I do not plan to lose.”

“Hm.” Beckett pursed his lips, but did not protest further. “Well, you have fun. I’m going to see if I can catch Santa.”

Myles rubbed his forehead wearily. “Beckett, I have explained to you that Santa cannot possibly exist. His sleigh would have to travel at near-light speeds to reach as many children as he does each year.”

“He’s  _ magic, _ Myles,” Beckett explained with the patient tone of a parent explaining why the sky is blue to a disbelieving child.

Myles clapped his hands. “Let’s not have this conversation again. I’m going to go to Artemis’s office. Good luck with Santa.”

Beckett gave him a big thumbs up. “Thank you, brother. This is the year, I can feel it!”

Myles watched his brother go with a mixture of exasperation and wonder. The two were twins, but sometimes he wondered how on earth they shared genetic material at all. He shook his head and started down the hallway. There was another brother to be concerned about right now.

* * *

The party was in full swing. Mulch could hear the chatter and music through the thin basement door. Though the wine cellar flooring had been reinforced following the siege, there were still sections of the house that strayed onto plain clay, and Mulch had managed to worm his way into a storage space that looked like it hadn’t been touched in decades. He sneezed as he creeped onto the stairs.

_ I should leave Butler a note to dust down here. He’d probably appreciate the reminder, _ the dwarf thought as he pressed one mud-covered ear to the door. Silence. Perfect.

Mulch turned the doorknob slowly, ears perked for any sign of the old, dry joints creaking. But his luck held - he pushed the door open with nary a creak.

The hallway was dimly lit, with twinkling Christmas lights supplying the bulk of its warm glow. Mulch crept onto the landing with the soft footfalls of a trained thief, steering clear of the carpet runner in the center of the hall.

He had checked the floor plan before going in - there was a vault two turns to the right, behind the second painting on the left. The party was in the other wing, so as long as he kept quiet-

“Santa?”

_ D’arvit. _

Mulch turned around, a wide grin plastered on his face, to see a kid with a mop of blonde hair staring at him with an open-mouthed gape.

“Heyyy, kid…” Mulch threw his hands up. “You caught me! Darn. But I have a lot of work to-”

“I KNEW IT!”

Mulch winced as the kid started bouncing up and down. “Alright, keep it down, huh?”

“I told Myles this was the year! I told him!” The kid ran up to him, staring at his face with wide blue eyes. “You’re really different than I thought you would be. You’re shorter.” He sniffed the air. “And smellier. And where’s your red coat?”

“Hey, you smell plenty to me,” Mulch groused. “And, uh, I don’t know, do you wear the same clothes every day?”

“I guess that makes sense,” the kid said, rubbing his chin. Mulch took the opportunity to take a step down the hall, but then the boy was trotting alongside him.

“Do you really deliver presents to every kid on Christmas? Myles says that’s impossible,” he said as they walked.

“Um, I outsource most of it. To parents and stuff,” Mulch replied, trying to walk faster, but he kept pace.

“Cool! Where are your presents?”

“I already dropped them off. Heading back now. Hey, aren’t your parents hosting a party? Don’t you wanna go back to that? Play with the other kids?”

“No.” The kid scuffed his toe on a corner of the runner. “I don’t really get along with them.”

Mulch stopped. He turned to the boy, who was looking down at the carpet. “Why not?”

“It’s hard to know what to do!” He looked up to Mulch. “They all know what to say and the rules to everything, and I get confused ‘cause no one told me. I like hanging out with Myles.”

The dwarf kept walking, but with a slower pace now. “Who’s Myles?”  
“My brother. He doesn’t mind if I don’t know things. He knows everything, so he tells me.”

Mulch nodded. “What’s your name, by the way? I never asked.”

“I’m Beckett.”

“Well, Merry Christmas, Beckett.”

“Merry Christmas, Santa.”

The pair kept walking down the hallway. Mulch idly realized he missed the turn. That was alright, he could go back later. “You said the other kids knew the rules to everything. What kind of rules?”

“Like what to do and what not to do. I like to talk to the birds, but they said that was weird.”

Mulch grunted. “Sounds like they’re the weird ones. People can get so caught up in behaving ‘normally’”, and he raised his fingers in air quotes, “that they forget how to have fun. You break all the rules you want, Beckett.”

He looked confused at that. “But I thought you gave people presents because they follow the rules?”

The dwarf stammered. “Well, only the ones that make sense.” He had already been there too long - someone was going to go looking for Beckett at some point. “Listen, kid, I have to go. If you wouldn’t mind, keep this between us?”

Beckett nodded solemnly and zipped his fingers across his mouth.

“Good.” Mulch smiled, a too-wide toothy dwarvish smile, but Beckett didn’t seem frightened. In fact, he padded up to Mulch and gave him a big hug.

“Thanks for listening, Santa,” he murmured, then skipped away, vanishing into the shadowy hallway.

Mulch stood there in shock for a few seconds. He could not recall the last time someone had voluntarily hugged him - most didn’t want to get within 10 feet of him, for a variety of very good reasons. And yet.

_ Kids. I’ll never understand them. _

He blinked slowly, then started dragging his feet back down the way he had come. For some reason, robbing the Fowls had lost its appeal. Maybe next year.

Probably not.

* * *

Myles walked with purpose up to the office door. There was no reason to hide; Artemis would not be prowling the corridors waiting for him to approach. He wasn’t even at the party.

After a bit of thought, the boy rubbed his chin. Come to think of it, he had not seen Artemis all evening. Perhaps he was busy plotting something of his own.

In any case, that was a mystery for another time. Myles peered at the computerized lock and typed in the code that his random password generator had cracked a few days earlier. It was a variation of  _ Aurum Est Potestas,  _ encrypted in a simple vigenère, then a letter to numbers code. Myles shook his head. He barely even needed the password generator. Sometimes he was mildly embarrassed by his brother’s flair for the dramatic.

The lock clicked, the light on the top switching from red to green, and Myles turned the doorknob and silently let himself in. The room was cloaked in shadow, the only light coming from a thin window high near the ceiling and from the many blinking LEDs attached to computers stacked near blank monitors.

Myles headed for the far corner of the room, where he knew his brother’s personal laptop was. The leftmost desk was covered with notes and papers, and the computer itself was nearly hidden under a pile of them. The boy brushed the mess aside and opened the laptop, which awoke from sleep near instantly, casting a pale blue glow over his skin.

Myles cracked his knuckles. He had planned to crack the laptop’s password over the course of the next week, so as to not attract too much attention, but that schedule would have to be modified a bit. It was imperative he get access to the contents tonight.

He fished around in his pocket and pulled out a slim USB drive, which he plugged into one of the many ports along the computer’s side. He power cycled the computer, and when it booted back up the pale blue lock screen was replaced with an inky black terminal. A white cursor blinked impatiently in front of him.

He typed a test command, a simple copy program, and the terminal spit out a garbled mess in reply.

Myles rubbed his forehead. Now was the hard part. The laptop was running his OS, but the data on it was still encrypted. All he had now were fragments of data, utterly incomprehensible without the key. It would be much longer than the one on the door lock - a password generator would take thousands of years to find it. But maybe he could cut that time down a bit.

Myles pulled up heartbreak.exe and let it begin to run. The worm would search the computer’s cache for whatever information it could find and use it to patch together the code. Hopefully, if the program did its job right, this would enable him to find the key within his lifetime. Myles smiled. He was oddly proud, watching the loading bars blink through their sequence. This was his first iteration of the virus that was seeing field use, and it was exciting to watch it perform.

It would still take a few hours for the program to do its job, though. Myles settled into the plush office chair and blinked at the screen, the loading bar flickering gently.

Nothing to do but wait.

* * *

Above the Manor’s East ballroom, where the crowd of socialites milled and gossiped and celebrated, there was a balcony. It was sparsely furnished and caked in snow, and a haze of music and chatter floated up from the floor beneath it, tempting its sole inhabitant down to warmth and company. But Artemis had a guest tonight, and he could not disappoint.

A haze appeared in the distance, and the teen smiled.

“Do come in,” he said, and the haze alighted on the balcony floor. The face of Commander Holly Short, smiling, shimmered into view.

“Merry Christmas, Arty.”

“Merry Christmas. Come inside, it’s freezing out here.”

The two retreated into the parlor room, where two mugs of steaming mulled cider, nicked from the party downstairs, waited. Holly sighed in relief as she curled her fingers around a cup and sank into a plush armchair.

“How was your trip?” Artemis asked as the elf took a long drink.

“Cold. Very cold,” she responded, clearing her throat. “Foaly says these suits are temperature controlled, but all I know is they don’t do a thing for the wind at 3,000 meters.” She shivered theatrically and Artemis chuckled.

“Well, I thank you for braving the elements to get here.”

“Are you kidding? Most of the time when we see each other, the world’s about to end. This is a nice change of pace,” and she sipped her drink, “even if the holiday’s a bit silly.”

Ah yes, thought Artemis. San D’Klass. “What do fairies think of Christmas?” he asked.

Holly tilted her head, pursing her lips in thought. “Mostly we don’t pay much attention to it,” she said. “I think fairies are a bit embarrassed by the whole thing. But it’s been catching on somewhat recently. I think people like the spirit of it, if not the history.”

Artemis nodded thoughtfully and turned to face the window. A light snow was starting to fall.

“Oh!” Holly clapped her hands. “Before I forget, I got you something.” She pulled out two slips of paper from her back pocket. “Tickets! There’s this play on right now, it’s about the Battle of Taillte. I thought you would like it.” She stopped and stared at the papers. “Are they supposed to be wrapped? I wasn’t sure how to wrap them.”

Artemis laughed and took the ticket the elf handed him. ”Thank you, Holly,” he said with a smile, and reached into his own coat pocket. “Here,” and he passed a small wrapped parcel across the table.

Holly smiled at him and began to unwrap it. Her brow furrowed as she stared at the contents of the box: a small metal device, jagged and incomplete looking. “...Thanks?”

“It’s an attachment for your omnitool,” Artemis explained. “It will add the capability to short any electronic lock completely undetected, as well as silence any alarm system. I thought about making a new one, but I know you’re rather attached to the one you have.”

Holly’s eyes widened as the boy explained the capabilities of the metal scrap, and she grinned at him once he was finished.

“Thank you, Artemis! That’s really thoughtful of you,” she said, but trailed off. He was looking at the snow again. It was falling thicker now, tinted yellow by the warm light of the parlor room.

Holly frowned at her friend. “You’re somewhere else tonight,” she noted. “Penny for your thoughts?”

He blinked and turned back, a sheepish look on his face. “I apologize. It’s nothing.”

She leaned forward. “If it’s on your mind, it’s something,” she said with a wry smile, but softened when he stared into his drink instead of responding. “What’s up, mud boy?”

Artemis took a slow sip of his cider before turning back to the window. “I did not intend to be so maudlin tonight. It is Christmas,” he said in a half-bitter tone. But the anger melted out of his features as he spoke. “It is also, for lack of a better term, our… anniversary.”

_ Anniversar-  _ Oh.

December 24th.

The words stuck in Holly’s throat. Memories, usually concealed under layers of repression and quiet resentment, thrummed deep in her brain.

“I didn’t realize,” she said. Artemis tapped on his mug.

She took a sip from her own drink. “Six years, huh?”

“Nine, technically,” he muttered. “For the rest of the world, at least.”

“Nine years. Long time.”

He nodded, still looking away from her.

It wasn’t as if this topic had never come up before. In the quiet gaps between life-threatening adventures, there had been snatches of conversation here and there, and Holly would say she forgave him and he was a different person now and everything was fine.

It was an easy lie, and it gave them both the pantomime of closure, but she had known it couldn’t hold up forever. The old wound still hurt, and picking at it did nothing but keep it bleeding.

They had to do this properly.

“It feels like yesterday sometimes,” she started. Artemis said nothing, but his gaze shifted to her face, expression unreadable.

“I wake up some nights, and I’m back in that cell, and it’s like no time has passed at all,” she continued, and the words came easier now. “And I’m  _ so _ angry, I’m furious, and I’m scared. And it didn’t happen yesterday, it happened years ago, and I tell myself that you’re different now, and you  _ are _ , but not that different. I think if you had to you would do it again,” she says, leveling her eyes at the boy’s without a trace of hesitation. “I know why. But that scares me sometimes.”

Artemis didn’t speak for a long time. He stared at her face with the same wooden expression, and she stared back unblinking.

_ There. Your turn, mud boy. _

Eventually, he cleared his throat. “I have had,” he started slowly, “a long time to think about that day.”

“You are right. I would do it again, and I have.”

Holly did not move, but the corner of her mouth twitched in shock. That was not the response she had been expecting.

“I cut off Spiro’s thumb to save the People from discovery. I lied to you to save my mother when she was dying of an incurable disease. I shot my father,” and here his voice started to rise, “to get him  _ back. _ ”

“I wish I could have the luxury of moral concern on my side. I am sorry, deeply sorry, for the harm I have done to you and everyone else around me. But I cannot lose this side of myself, not completely. It has caused pain, yes, but it has also saved myself and the people I love from ruin.”

Holly was deathly silent after Artemis had finished speaking. Her heart was pounding.

A part of her saw what he was saying, understood that he had indeed done bad things for good reasons. But deep in her brain, something raw and hurt was screaming.

_ How dare you try to justify what you did to me. How  _ dare _ you try to act like you did the right thing. You are a monster. _

She took a deep, shaky breath. Artemis’s face was morphing into one of concern, and she cleared her throat.

“Yeah” she said, in as nonchalant of a voice as she could muster. “I’m still mad at you, though. Just a little.”

Artemis curved his lips in a bitter smile. “I suppose that’s only fair.”

Holly examined the boy in front of her. He was sitting perfectly straight, shoulders squared and tense. She could see the fingers around his mug going faintly white from pressure.

_ He’s terrified. _

The anger melted away, not quickly, but bit by bit.

“I care about you too, though,” she said quietly. “I think we both forget that sometimes.”

Artemis blinked and let out a small chuckle. For the first time since they had started talking, he had a small, genuine smile.

“Thank you,” he said, and underneath it was an unspoken  _ for everything. For understanding. _

She didn’t understand, not completely, but it was close enough.

“Come on,” she said, and held out her hand. He took it, and she walked them over to the glass balcony doors. She watched the flakes fall idly.

“Not a sight you see in Haven,” she murmured. “It’s beautiful.”

“It is.”

It was December 24th. Christmas Eve. The day Holly’s life had changed irrevocably, for better and worse.

She squeezed the hand she was holding and thought,  _ I don’t regret it for a second. _


	3. Christmas Future (Epilogue)

“Psst. Myles.”

There was a thin yellow light shining on his eyelids. Myles squeezed them shut to block it out and reached for the covers to pull over his head.

His eyes flew open when they came up empty.

He was still in the office, Beckett standing over him with wide excited eyes. Asleep. He had fallen _asleep._

Myles groaned and put his head in his hands. Beckett grinned impishly and held up a bundle of clothes.

“I pulled out some pajamas for you, so you look like you just got out of bed,” he explained. “Artemis didn’t see you, so you should be fine.”

“Thank you,” Myles said gratefully, and reached for the bundle, but Beckett yanked it out of his reach before he could grab it.

Myles stared at his twin reproachfully. “What do you want?”

“The room code,” he explained with a smile.

Myles sighed, then sat up. “Hold on, how did you get in here without the code?”

Beckett pointed a thumb behind him. “You left the door open, silly.”

Indeed, the oak door was slightly ajar, letting in a sliver of dawn sunlight. Myles put his head back in his hands.

Beckett gave his brother a comforting pat on the back. “It’s ok, brother. You can’t be smart all the time.”

* * *

The twins made their way to the living room, where the rest of the household was already waiting. Angeline held her arms up with a broad grin, and the pair rushed to give their mother a hug.

“Merry Christmas, boys,” she said warmly, and they murmured a muffled “merry Christmas” back to her. She gave them both a squeeze before ushering them towards the tree.

“Go on!” She gestured towards the sizable pile of candy-colored boxes. The twins needed no further convincing.

Beckett descended upon the first present with his name on it and started tearing madly at the paper. As he was cheering over his new ant farm, Myles reached for the blue and gold box he had been keeping an eye on since last night. He glanced at Artemis, relaxed on the couch. Artemis gave him a half smile back.

Myles tugged at the ribbon and the bow fell apart easily, the paper opening with it like petals on a flower.

_No way did he wrap this himself. He would have butchered it,_ the boy thought grumpily.

He opened the box, and nestled inside was something Myles did not think he would ever see again. He pulled out a floppy, stuffed limb and stared in shock.

“Professor Primate.”

Artemis smiled. “Not the original, of course. But I think you’ll find him a more than suitable replacement.”

The boy held up the fuzzy body in front of him. It was a ridiculous gift, all things considered. Myles was far too old for stuffed animals now, even if they did come with the array of enhancements he was sure Artemis had added. It was quite absurd.

He hugged the toy close to his chest. It felt familiar, like saying hello to an old friend.

“Thank you,” he said, voice muffled by the cotton.

Myles was a Fowl, after all. He was no stranger to absurdity.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WOW. I'm starting to see a pattern with the collections I sign up with - it's always a rush to finish them in the last week! I hope you all enjoy this rather poorly-timed Christmas story (in my defense, I did start it in December!) and the amazing art by talesoftales on Tumblr! Please check it out here, it's amazing: https://talesoftales.tumblr.com/post/643135169756348416/my-piece-for-the-artemis-fowl-big-bang-i-had-an  
> This has been a big test of my writing abilities, and I'm so grateful to everyone who participated in the big bang for supporting each other, and of course to Latte (pokegeek151 on Tumblr) for organizing it!  
> Until next time, everyone!


End file.
